Symposium

Why Have There Been No Great Women Architects?

Feminist Perspectives on Gendered Spaces in Modern Architecture and Art History

Fr 14.06., 12:30–19:30 & Sa 15.06., 09:00–16:00
black and white photo with 3 men in hats and a woman in a hat

Liane Zimbler on a construction site in Vienna, mid-1920s
© private collection

There is still a lack of broad visibility despite decades of feminist research, monographs and exhibitions on women architects and reference to gender issues in the history of architecture and art. The conference is dedicated to examining the interaction between society, gender and space from a feminist perspective. The dual focus is on the productivity of women at all levels of architecture and planning, as well as on the gender-specific perception and use of space.

PROGRAMME

Fri 14.06., 12:30–19:30, Az W Podium

Welcome address:
Angelika Fitz, Director of the Az W
Harald Stühlinger, Head of Art History research, TU Wien

Introduction:
Thomas Moser & Sabine Plakolm-Forsthuber, Art History researchers, TU Wien

Lectures:
13:00_Panel I
Eliana Perotti (CH, Zurich), The “ugly, sentimentally scholarly Prussian Countess Poninski-Dohna”, author of the first treatise on urban development in Germany, titled Misogeny and Contempt

Kristen Barry (US, Muncie), Women for Women’s Spaces: Gendered Space and Design in the Emerging Modern United States

Chair: Leonie Mühlegger

14:50_Panel II
Rainer Schützeichel (DE, Potsdam), Emilie Winkelmann: Pionier of Bourgeois Architecture by and for Women in Berlin und Potsdam

Apolline Vranken (BE, Brussels), De-Pioneering the History of Architecture: From Simone Guillissen-Hoa (1916–1996) to her Constellations

Chair: Mihály András Németh

16:40_Panel III
Sigal Davidi (IL, Tel Aviv), A Gender Perspective of the History of Architecture: The Case of the First Israeli Women Architects

Sabine Plakolm-Forsthuber (AT, Vienna), Dora Gad: Shaping Israeli Design from the 1950s to the 1970s

Chair: Theresa Knosp

18:30_Keynote:
Despina Stratigakos (US, Buffalo), The Collaborative (Re) turn: Next-Gen Methodologies in Women’s Architectural Histories

Chair: Monika Platzer

Sat 15.06., 09:00–16:00, TU Wien, Boecklsaal

09:00_Keynote:
Mary Pepchinski (DE, Berlin / Dresden), In Search of Feminist Architectural History / Theory: Questions for the Canon(s)

Chair: Harald Stühlinger

Lectures:
11:00_Panel I
Dörte Kuhlmann (AT, Vienna), The Abduction of the Sabine Women in Early Modern Architecture: The Integration of Young Women Architects in the Discourse

Hilde Heynen (BE, Leuven), Architectural Theory and Feminism: Entanglements since the 1970s

Chair: Harald Stühlinger

14:10_Panel II
Elana Shapira (AT, Wien), The Journalist and Politician Gisela Urban and the Creation of Gendered Space in Interwar Viennese Media

Johanna Sluiter (CH, Bern), Edith Schreiber-Aujame, AEP, and the Potential of Female Architectural Agency

Chair: Sabina Riß

16:00_Panel III
Tanja Kilzer (DE, Trier), A Female Form of Commemoration? The Role of Women Architects in the Field of Memorial Architecture

Rosanna Umbach (DE, Bremen), Between the Collective and the Kitchen: historical reception and queer feminist spatial praxis

Chair: Ingrid Holzschuh

A cooperation by the Az W and TU Wien